If The Sky Comes Falling Down For You
by RowenaR
Summary: Nightmares never bothered Poe Dameron. But this one... this one does. Spoilers for The Force Awakens.


Heh. I started writing this fic when the first trailer came out, the one showing Poe being tortured, but I found out I really had to watch the movie to be able to finish it. I did on Thursday, and so far I liked it because it very much felt like Star Wars, had a lot of humor and some really stunnings scenes (will have to watch it again for a more in-depth commentary, though). So, that said, yes, there are spoilers in this story, both for the movie and the _Shattered Empire_ comic series so if you don't want to get spoiled for either of them... this is not the story you're looking for. Move along, move along. The rest of you... come on in!

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 **If The Sky Comes Falling Down For You**

" _What if I'm far from home?  
Oh, brother I will hear you call.  
What if I lose it all?  
Oh, sister I will help you out!  
Oh, if the sky comes falling down for you,  
There's nothing in this world I wouldn't do."_

 _Avicii, "Hey, Brother"_

Nightmares never bothered you. You've always had them from time to time. Even when you were a child, three years old; your parents gone on yet another mission in their service to the Alliance, you would sometimes wake up, whimpering and sniffing. You don't remember them but your grandfather did. He never quite forgave your parents for choosing their service over you.

You never minded, though. You never resented them for barely being with you in the first three years of your life, as you don't remember much of that, anyway. You didn't even resent them for mentally disappearing from your home on Yavin IV from time to time. It would happen sometimes, both to Mom and Dad. They'd still be there, physically but in their head, they'd be far away, and it took you almost a lifetime to figure out where they went. You went there yourself for the first time after you nearly were shot out of the sky about ten years ago, and have gotten to know that place well since then.

It never bothered you before; the nightmares and the need to find a place far away from them sometimes. You're a military brat, you always somehow knew what military service demanded of those committed to it. It's practically in your blood.

And yet you're sitting on your cot in a camp on some nameless forward operating base, a week after blowing up Starkiller Base, panting hard after jerking awake from a dream full of blood and violence and dark whisperings. From something probing and poking around in your brain and switching to full on squashing and blundering when it doesn't find what it wants.

You nearly sob as you bury your face in your hands. That was the worst thing. Blood and violence don't bother you much after years of military service in a guerilla force. Even for a pilot, that sometimes means messy, dirty, slow instead of painless and fast. But something sinking its fangs _into your brain_ and turning everything upside down until you don't know who you are anymore… that never happened before to you.

It _scares_ you like nothing ever scared you before.

You take a deep breath, not sure whether to calm yourself down or keep yourself from throwing up right here on the ground in front of you, beneath your fighter. Best pilot in the entire Resistance, and you nearly lose your dinner over a nightmare. You wonder what Mom would say – Lieutenant Shara Bey of Starfighter Command, Green Four in the Battle of Endor, once in a lifetime personal pilot and bodyguard of General Leia Organa _and_ the mysterious Luke Skywalker, and here you are. You wonder what Dad would say – Sergeant Kes Dameron with the Pathfinders, General Solo's personal strike force on Endor and beyond, and here you are.

Force, you're a mess. Of course neither of them would scold or humiliate you. They'd know what to say, know what to do, know the place you had to go to get away from the nightmares that have been haunting you since Kylo Ren got his hands on you.

They're not here, though. They've been dead for a few years, just like Grandfather, and you have no one to show you where to go when nightmares do bother you, after all.

Maybe Mom would tell you to go and seek out General Organa, ask her for advice – there's this thing that everyone knows and no one would ever say out loud: after Ben, you became some kind of surrogate son to the General – but you're pretty sure that the General's got other problems right now. After all, Solo is dead and Kylo Ren is still alive.

You have other friends, of course you do. You're Black Leader, best fucking pilot in the galaxy, people like you have a lot of friends. Thing is: most of them know you as a smart ass, sarcastic asshole with a taste for live and a gift for strategy and command. Practically none of them know any other side of you, and you'd prefer to keep it that way.

You take a deep breath, try to tell yourself that it was just a dream, that you'll need to catch all the sleep you can and it almost works. All until you lie down and look at the belly of your fighter and he's back in your brain, probing, poking, turning it upside down, inside out until he finds what he needs and leaves you behind with your guilt and your despair. Suddenly you can't breathe.

The only reason, in the end, why you don't succumb to a full scale panic attack is that you're one lucky bastard and BB-8 chose this moment to wake up with a droid scream next to you. It shakes you out of the cocoon of your nightmare and you shake your head, sit back up. Next to you, BB-8 gives out a low, confused stream of warbles. You frown. "Had a bad dream, buddy?"

A mournful hooting is your only reply and you realize that until now, you never once wondered if droids have nightmares, too. If they dream at all. As it is, BB-8 does but doesn't seem to want to talk about it. You can certainly get behind _that_.

It's not like him though. Your droid is a sarcastic little shit, vocoder too big for his size but he's also loyal to a fault and he likes to talk to you. After he came back from his wild adventure with Finn and Rey he wouldn't shut up for three days straight and you loved every minute of it. Screaming himself awake and being close-lipped about it, that's not how you know your droid. You sigh. "Want to go for a walk?"

Because that's what Dad sometimes did. When whatever he saw in the war pulled him back in, sometimes he would go on a walk, deep inside the rainforest. When he came back from it, the war had retreated and he was same old Dad. For a very long time, you genuinely believed that the rainforest had magical powers, and your parents never took that belief from you.

The planet you're current on doesn't have a rainforest, at least not where the base is but it has trees and that's enough for now. You get up and start toward the trees, walk a few steps until you hear a whistle behind you. You turn around, and BB-8 tells you that you're walking in the wrong direction in a series of hoots and warbles. "Really?" you ask him? "Wrong direction? Where'd you rather I went, huh?"

He explains and you hesitate. It makes sense, that's the thing and you should have seen it yourself. That your droid has to tell you… well. Then again, you do trust the little ball with your life. Fine, then.

You change your heading, towards one of the med tents, BB-8 rolling along behind you. After a few more steps, you duck into the closest one. Recovery ward, and there he is.

A week after Starkiller Base and whatever happened in that forest, Finn is still not fully back on his feet. He should have had a bacta bath but with the annihilation of the Senate, the New Republic is into too much of a disarray to pump any more credits or supplies into the non-governmental Resistance. General Organa told you that and you grasped its meaning immediately. If you keep up the fight against the First Order, you are on your own, all of you. No bacta unless someone would immediately die without it.

Finn is awake and doesn't look happy. A sentiment you share and maybe you can't deal with your demons right now. But helping others dealing with theirs… you can do that. You walk over to him, sit down next to his bed and he looks up from the padd he'd been reading. He tries to smile at you. "Hey."

"Hey." Smiling isn't really in your capacity tonight but you try to mirror his, anyway. BB-8's hooted sarcastic comment tells you in no uncertain terms that you very much failed. You kind of hope Finn hasn't learned the finer points of BB-8's astromech dialect yet but the slight grin on his face tells you differently. Well, fuck.

"Shouldn't you be asleep? Mandatory rest periods and all that?" Good point, you think.

You shrug. "Shouldn't you be asleep? Recovering from a lightsaber fight and all that?"

Finn gives you a humorless laugh and looks away, fumbling around with the sheet covering his legs and BB-8 gives a series of questioning warbles. Well, yeah, you'd like to know _that_ yourself but Finn plays hard to get for a little while longer, evading your gaze and all. Then, a simple, "I miss her."

You know who he refers to. A no-brainer, after all. You don't really know Rey, didn't get to know her well enough before she set off to find Luke Skywalker but you remember one thing: the bond that seemed to be between Rey and Finn, even when Finn was still in a healing stasis. You could tell Finn a lot now, have been a commander long enough to know how to handle a lovelorn soldier. Hell, you've been "lovelorn" yourself often enough to know how to handle it.

But something tells you that your usual stock of phrases wouldn't be a lot of help now, and you're not in the mood to be anyone's commander tonight. Plus you still have demons chasing around in your brain, demons you desperately want to get rid of. You take a different approach. "Tell me about her."

Finn's first reaction is hiding his eyes and a small, uncharacteristically shy smile and you feel a short burst of panic that he's going to change the topic, try to find out why _you_ aren't sleeping, just to get out of talking about the girl who seems to have him all twisted up. You find yourself hoping – ridiculously – desperately that he'll get the hint and give you something that'll distract you from that nightmare that won't let you go.

And after another moment of embarrassed fumbling around, he does.

In the end, the nightmare doesn't leave you alone, not for a moment, but somehow listening to Finn, just sitting there in the half-empty tent, BB-8 adding commentary now and then, makes it easier to not let it bother you. Maybe, you think, you haven't won the war yet, but you definitely won this one battle. That's all you need now, and one day you'll thank Finn for being your wingman, your brother in arms tonight. You'll just have to make sure you get a chance for that, and you can do _that_. After all, you _are_ the best damn pilot in the entire Resistance. That's gotta be good for _something_ , doesn't it?


End file.
